Ship scrapping is a slow and methodical process. A ship is typically run up on the scrapping ways, which can be a concrete platform or a sloping sandy beach.  As burners cut away the upper sections of the ship, it gets lighter and floats a little higher allowing winches to pull the ship a bit farther up the ways. As more steel is cut away the ship is pulled progressively farther ashore until the entire structure is reduced to scrap metal to be hauled away for resmelting in a local steel mill.

I recall years ago watching the ship breaking yard in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from a ship in drydock just up the harbor in China Shipbuilding. A ship being scrapped in the breaking yard looked like the carcass of some great beast being slowly but inexorably devoured by ants. 

For the past month, the aircraft carrier INS Viraat, ex HMS Hermes has been slowly cut up and dismantled at an  Alang shipbreaker’s yard in Gujarat, India. Breaking her up completely is likely to take a year.

In the media, the ship has been referred to as the “world’s longest-serving warship.”  Whether the claim is literally accurate, the INS Viraat, ex HMS Hermes had a long and distinguished career in two navies, serving for 25 years in the British Royal Navy and another 30 in the Indian Navy. 

The aircraft carrier HMS Hermes‘ keel was laid at the end of World War II in 1944.  She was not completed and launched until 1953 and was commissioned in 1959. She served as the flagship of the Royal Navy’s task force during the Falklands War in 1982. In 1985, she was decommissioned from active duty and subsequently sold to India.

In 1987, renamed Viraat, meaning ‘giant” in Sanskrit, the carrier was commissioned in the Indian Navy where she would serve for an additional 35 years.

Ex-Royal Navy carrier HMS Hermes turned INS Viraat to be dismantled in India

Thanks to David Rye for contributing to this post.